Red Winged Blackbird Eggs: Blue Green With Brown Black or Purple Marks

Summary: Red Winged Blackbird is a New World songbird liking such wetland flora as cattails and willows. Dark spots mark the large end of their pale blue green eggs.

Female Red-Winged Blackbird in Bluffer's Park, Toronto, Canada: Mdf, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Agelaius phoeniceus is a New World passerine (Latin: passerinus, "of a sparrow"), or perching, bird native to North and Central America. The soniferous (Latin: sonus, "sound" + ferre, "to bear") percher enjoys a large native range for breeding, residency and wintering.

Breeding favors homelands in the northern continental, or Lower 48, United States and expands the expressive songbird's range.

In Canada, all ten of Canada's provinces and two (Northwest Territories and Yukon) of Canada's three territories welcome breeding Red Winged Blackbirds.

Expanded ranges for breeding in the United States include: northern Cook Inlet and northern Kalgin Island in Lower Cook Inlet in south central Alaska; between the Tanana and Yukon rivers in Alaska's east central districts of Fairbanks North Star Borough, Southeast Fairbanks Census Area and Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area.

Residency increases the range of Red Winged Blackbirds.

In Canada, Red Winged Blackbirds reside on the west coast along western coastal British Columbia, including southern Vancouver Island, and in the east in southeastern Ontario, southeastern Quebec and in Southern, or South Shore, Nova Scotia.

In the United States, Red Winged Blackbirds reside throughout the Lower 48.

In the northwestern Caribbean Sea, Red Winged Blackbirds reside on the southwestern Cuban island of Isla de la Juventud ("Isle of Youth") and in northwestern and southwestern Matanzas, southeastern Mayabeque and western Pinar del Río provinces in western mainland Cuba.

In the northwestern Atlantic Ocean, Red Winged Blackbirds reside on the islands of Abaco, Andros, Eleuthera, Grand Bahama and New Providence in the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.

In Mexico, except for two northwestern states of Sinaloa and Sonora, Red Winged Blackbirds reside in all remaining federal entities (29 states + federal district of Mexico City).

In Central America, Red Winged Blackbirds reside in northern Belize, southwestern to south central Guatemala, northwestern Honduras, western Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica.

Wintering may occur in Mexico's northwestern and north central provinces of Baja California, Chihuahua, Durango, Nayarit, Sinaloa and Sonora.

Red Winged Blackbird distribution map ~ blue = breeding; green = year round; orange = wintering: Cephas, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Agelaius phoeniceus (Ancient Greek: ἀγελαῖος, agelaîos, "gregarious; in a flock" + Latin: phoeniceus, "deep red") is known commonly in English as Red Winged Blackbird.

Female and male Red Winged Blackbirds exhibit sexual dimorphism (Ancient Greek: δίς, dís, “twice” + μορφή, morphḗ, “form, shape” + -ισμός, -ismós, suffix forming abstract nouns). Males display bold coloring contrasting glossy blackness from head to tail with distinctive red and yellow epaulets, or shoulder patches. Smaller in size, females present overall dark brown coloration, with brown-and-buff breast and belly, and a whitish eyebrow.

During their breeding season, which may extend from February to August, peaking from mid-May to July, Red Winged Blackbirds lay a clutch of two to four beautiful pale eggs for each of one to two broods.

Shells are blue green to gray, with brown, black or purple markings that especially decorate the large end of the oval-shaped egg.

Red Winged Blackbirds favor such wetland habitats as fresh or saltwater marshes, rice paddies, vernal (Latin: vernalis, "of the spring") pools and willow (Salix spp.) forest areas.

Females build nests low, near the water surface in marshes or near the ground in drier locations, such as alfalfa (Medicago sativa) fields and sedge (Cyperaceae family) meadows.

Just hatched! Red Winged Blackbird chicks, Ernst Waterfowl Production Area, North Dakota: USFWS-Mountain Prairie, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Preferred flora for establishing their tightly woven cup-shaped nests include: cattails (Typha spp.), goldenrods (Solidago spp.), reeds (Phragmites australis), sedges (Cyperaceae family) and willows (Salix spp.).

As I was weeding the banks of the ephemeral creek that winds through the willow grove demarcating the west lawn, I uncovered a Red Winged Blackbird's broken, pale eggshell. The pale blue greenness of the shell was decorated with brownish black squiggles at the large end of the egg.

Ever since that discovery, a male Red Winged Blackbird has flown from the nearby cattail-filled vernal pool to perch on a willow a few feet across the creek from me. He stays awhile to serenade the world with beautiful sounds, of which my favorite calls are reminiscent of clear clinking and tinkling of glasses.

A helpful friend: flamboyant male Red Winged Blackbird picks ticks off White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in Big Stone National Wildlife Area's native prairie habitat, west central Minnesota: Naomi Ballard/USFWS-Midwest Region, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Female Red-Winged Blackbird in Bluffer's Park, Toronto, Canada: Mdf, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Agelaius_phoeniceus2.jpg

Red Winged Blackbird distribution range: Cephas, CC BY SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Agelaius_phoeniceus.svg

Just hatched! Red Winged Blackbird chicks, Ernst Waterfowl Production Area, North Dakota: USFWS-Mountain Prairie, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwsmtnprairie/11857385834/

Helpful friends ~ Male Red Winged Blackbird and deer friend in Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge, west central Minnesota: Naomi Ballard/US Fish and Wildlife Service - Midwest Region (USFWSmidwest), via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwsmidwest/9606730083/

For further information:

Hauber, Mark. E. The Book of Eggs: A Life-Size Guide to the Eggs of Six Hundred of the World's Bird Species. Lewes, UK: Ivy Press, 2014.

Jaramillo, Alvaro, and Peter Burke. New World Blackbirds: The Icterids. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

"Red-winged Blackbird." Wild Bird Watching.
Available @ http://www.wild-bird-watching.com/Red-winged-Blackbird.html

"Red-winged Blackbird: Agelaius phoeniceus." Fairfax County Public Schools > Island Creek Elementary School > Study of Northern Virginia Ecology.
Available @ http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/red-winged_blackbird.htm

"Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)." National Park Service > Presidio of San Francisco > Learn about the Park > Explore Nature.
Available @ http://www.nps.gov/prsf/learn/nature/red-winged-blackbird.htm

"Red-winged Blackbird: Life History." The Cornell Lab of Ornithology All About Birds > Guide.
Available @ http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-winged_Blackbird/lifehistory